


Hush

by psylocke



Category: Marvel (Comics), New Mutants, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4411136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psylocke/pseuds/psylocke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is draining Illyana's control over Limbo, and despite her better judgement cannot help but believe the messenger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hush

**Author's Note:**

> This is ultimately intended to be something bigger, spanning - probably - 15k words and five or so chapters. However, I'll say it plainly - this has been sitting for a little while, and it may not get to where I'd like it to be. I'm uploading this segment because I like the writing, and I like that it is almost entirely Illyana-focused. If my schedule allows it, I'll try to continue this. Until then, I think it's a fair character piece.

_I am in a dark place—_

She had been walking through unyielding darkness for what felt like hours. Her calves ached, lactic acids building up, faster than her body could burn it off. But she couldn’t stop, no matter how much she wanted to. Illyana Rasputin did not always know the demons she ran from, existing alongside them since she was but a girl of seven—today, however, she knew the demon. She knew him well. His face, his strength, his vendetta. He was no mystery, rather a surprise.

He was supposed to be dead.

                                _—But I am not a bad person._

By now, she should have known better. None stay dead, not even those long buried. She had watched the corpses of former friend and foe alike rise from their tombs, controlled by the Hellwitch herself. She and her friends had been murdered in cold blood by an otherwordly villain. How many times had she perished herself? How many times had she seen the rise and fall of the Phoenix, succumbed to its irresistible call? She had been life, and death, and life again. Familiar faces should not have surprised her.

But his face — his face, above all other faces, still managed to plague her nightmares.

Illyana Rasputin had faced down hordes of demons, bloodlusting warriors, and gods, but the only one to make her blood run cold was Belasco, her former master. She should have known better. Known not to trust a broken and bloodied body to be proof of death.

What she should have done was burn the corpse.

 _I try to be good. I do._  
                                                                                          _Why is it so hard?_

* * *

Limbo was a twisted place, shattered and incongruous. Something out of an M. C. Escher piece. It continued, on and on and on and on and on, forever — a moment of distraction and it would place you right back at the beginning. Illyana was fortunate in that she knew it better than almost any other human being alive, though even that advantage was ripped from her upon realizing her foe was Belasco. He was one of the few he knew it just as well as she did, if not better.

Each time he returned, he was more powerful than before. That was the only reason she ran — not fear, not terror, but self-preservation. That instinct to run was more important than the side of her wanting to fight. She could not do it alone, she knew that now. She needed to get far enough ahead of him to teleport from the hellish realm. That was why he needed her now, not her soul or her powers, but her means of escape. No matter how much she ran, though, he was always the same distance behind her.

She dared not turn around to face him, not even sure how close he was. Despite the distance, she could feel his breath on her neck and his feet on her heels. He was not attacking her, not looking for a fight: Illyana Rasputin would win in a fight, but there would be consequences for it. He did not want to be defeated this soon, and she did not want to face that particular demon.

It was only a matter of time before he unleashed a swarm upon her, more than she could tackle alone. She was ready to fall over, ready to allow herself to be taken. It would be easier, wouldn’t it? Letting him win, finally, after years of diverting his plans. It wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t be good, but it would be easy. Illyana had always wanted to take the easy way, though circumstances kept her from it. It had hardened her, made her stronger and better. It had saved her friends, earned her respect.

‘Easy’ was a setting on Skyrim, not a way to live.

Illyana reached over her back, the massive sword slung across her shoulders awaiting her. The hilt was cold in her palm, but it burned with every second she held on to it. It smelled the blood, that sickening stench that hung in Limbo’s air. So many needlessly killed, so many bodies marring the unholy ground. She was more powerful here, more attuned to herself. The sound of ripping metal echoed all around them as it was pulled from its sheath, reverberating down the length of her body. “Stop,” she commanded as she rounded, heels digging into the loosely packed earth. Her arms struck out in a wide arc, keeping her pursuer at bay. “No further, Belasco.”

The man was a shell of his former self, haggard and emaciated. His face had sunken, cheeks hollowed out, gaunt features haunted by death and torture. His hair had become wisps of grey, hardly hanging on to his scalp. He did not appear a threat, but Illyana knew not to underestimate him. “You confuse me for another, child,” he said. That voice, one that had echoed through her nightmares since she was but a child, had weakened to little more than a whisper. “Do I pose a threat to you?”

“Enough for me to know you won’t walk a step closer,” she spat through gritted teeth. The tip of her blade pointed square at the demon’s chest. “Elder Gods or no, I will cut you down where you stand, demon, and I will see to it that next time, you don’t dare return to challenge me. Limbo is my domain.”

A small, crooked smile formed on his lips. “You must feel it as well, my child,” he spoke, unmoved by the weapon. “Your control is slipping — this domain of yours, your hold of it is weakening. And you cannot explain why, you cannot even begin to fathom… How do you think I found you, sorceress? I am a corpse, shambling and slow, yet you could not be rid of me. I have walked in your shadow since you came here. You did not notice my presence until I willed it.”

She did not answer. That may have been a mistake.

“You’ve been wondering it for weeks. Why else would you have been visiting this place so often? You’re seeking something. Truth, justice, answers — the specifics don’t matter. But I saw weakness, and I followed. And you are on a similar path to my own. You are trying to reclaim your former glory as you feel your power draining from your very being. Something — someone — is taking control of Limbo, and you are powerless to see the usurper. You’ve grown complacent, Illyana. Weak. But I can help you.”

“For a price,” she finished for him. “I don’t make deals with demons, Belasco. Leave. Slink back into whatever hovel you crawled from. Put yourself out of your misery.”

He laughed — and in that moment, the life returned to his face. It echoed over the hills and rolling plains. “I can’t leave. This is my hell. My prison. And you my curse — I have no desire to live a life adjacent to yours. But we are connected, you and I and this realm.”

“You should’ve thought of that before tainting my soul.” She was growing angry — in that rage, her judgement was clouding over. Illyana tried to breathe, tried to calm herself down, but his manipulations were working. “You brought all of this upon yourself, demon, and if I have to live with the consequences, then you can be damn sure you will, too.”

Another smile crept onto Belasco’s features. “That’s why I first fell for you, Illyana — that fight.”

She scowled. “When you abducted me, I was six years old, you sick fuck—” Her blade shot forward, through his fallen chest. When he coughed, dust and pestilence escaped his lungs. His face neither twisted nor contorted. It fell at peace, finally. It would not last long, they both knew that, but it would last long enough. “And by the time I found the strength to best you the first time, I was barely fourteen. If I hear you mention that nasty little crush of yours again, I’ll cut it off and hang it over my throne. Understood?”

He was dying — again, for now, but he would return later. As she removed the blade, he collapsed to his knees, drawing his final breaths. “Prepare, Illyana—your world is about to be consumed in blood and hellfire. I came to warn you, not to fight. They are coming. Cast out of their favour, they found a new champion… one who could accomplish what I never could. And they are prepared to unleash upon the earth… an inferno.”

She swung again, more rage than sense, his head rolling from his body. It continued that smile, and even his laugh continued to hang in the surrounding mountains. “Forgive me for saying it, but fuck you, and fuck your inferno. Try something original next time.”

Trying hard to catch her breath, Illyana raised a hand, the stepping disk appearing before her. She did not wait to watch the body be drained of life before stepping through the portal to return to earth. She knew he was not gone, despite her efforts. There was no use watching a frail old man piece his dessicated corpse back together once more. Illyana almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

* * *

_Whoever said ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’ didn’t know what they were talking about._

Her dreams that night were filled of demons and prophecies, neither of which she took lightly, but neither of which she held in the esteem she once did. Her fear of demons had been a childish manifestation of her fear of herself. That juvenile thing she had hidden away for so long. Life was easier when she embraced who — what — she was. The stares became more palatable. Her friends became less wary. It was hard, she figured, to be afraid of a person who gave the impression of having so much faith in their own abilities.

_Corruption corrupts. Power helps you fight the corruption. I should know._

Three times she awoke in a cold sweat, and three times she needed Kitty to lull her back to sleep. It had been a long time since those last set of nightmares, when she’d creep across the room and crawl into Kitty’s bed, and into her arms. They no longer shared a room, but she was only a portal away, and she was always willing for the added comfort of having somebody in her arms.

“Are you okay?” Kitty asked her, finally doing more than stroking hair and muttering quiet shushes to quell her nerves. When Illyana merely nodded, the arms around her squeezed, and a nose pressed against her shoulder. “You’re sure?”

“Bad dreams.”

A soft chuckle. “I knew that. Do you need to stay up? We can watch movies on my laptop.”

It took her a moment, but Illyana finally shook her head. “I’ll be okay. But thank you.”

_Everybody else forgets I ruled—rule—a hell dimension. I don’t. I can’t._

She closed her eyes, feeling the soft breathing against her neck.

_I fought for it. I created and destroyed. I reign supreme. I have absolute power._

While she struggled to sleep, Kitty’s hand on her chest, measuring her heartbeat, made relaxing fractionally more easy for her. She breathed. She thought. She tried not to worry, but that was easier said than done.

_I am more than my corruption. I am more than a child of darkness—_

Illyana did not find sleep again that evening, always balancing a step ahead of it, refusing to let her brain take over. Unlike her, her subconscious did not seem to fret over the torment she endured when she was supposed to be resting. It celebrated it. Reminded her of it at every possible opportunity. She could not close her eyes without seeing those eyes, leering at her, as he corrupted her innocence and broke the child’s body.

She did not cry — she would not let herself do it, not around Kitty, but it was the closest she’d come to it in years.

                                                                                    _—You can remove the child from the demons… but you can’t remove the demons of a child._

* * *

 

She avoided Limbo nearly a week, Belasco’s words still echoing viciously through her head. It hadn’t been her intention to allow his warning to be taken so seriously, but he had not been wrong. Something had been sapping her power, and each trip into her pocket dimension made her come back feeling weaker. They were small, imperceptible changes — or they would be, she assumed, for anyone else. Illyana did not take kindly to being called paranoid, but she was fully in control of her faculties: the second she felt a sniffle coming on, she knew. She was not an active fighter, she did not start fights unless her back was against the wall. She was reactive. To be a good defender, one needed to know any time they were at risk.

There was nobody she could talk to about it — not even Kitty, stubborn as that sounded. She needed more information, more truth. It was never enough, had never been enough, to go charging in on a hunch. They’d done it before, when they were younger, back when they didn’t know better. Where had it gotten them?

That was why, six days after her run-in with Belasco, Illyana returned to the craggy landscape, the blood-red sun and orange-tinted sky nearly blinding her. Sundown in Limbo, a perpetual twilight that dimmed and brightened based on her own power. Except now she felt weak, almost helpless, and the sun burned brighter. Her skin bristled from the heat and light, a hand cupping over her eyes to survey the shambled domain. “If I were trying to usurp my own throne…” she muttered, “where would I be hiding?”

“On earth.” The voice came from behind, causing her to jump. But she didn’t have to turn around to know it was Belasco, shambling forward. From the corner of her eye, upon him approaching even to her, she realized he was missing his head. When she did finally turn to see, she saw him carrying it in one hand. “Hiding. Delaying the invasion of the Elder Gods. Making peace with my enemies, love with my friends. But, then — I am not you.”

“No,” she said, averting her eyes forward. There was no gore, but it was still unsettling. “You’re not.”

“But I’ve been you,” he acknowledged. “I felt the power draining from me as another usurped my power. Each time you’ve lost control of Limbo, it was a sudden takeover — it was not the gradual thing this is. They’re not yet powerful enough. They need to draw more from you. Your being here stymies it, however slightly. You retain control when you’re here, but they are not some pretender. This is their realm. They aren’t stealing it. They’re taking it back.”

She gritted her teeth, head shaking. “You’re not talking sense.”

“This is my last try, Illyana,” he said. His voice had gone even quieter than their last meeting. He was truly falling apart. “My last effort to make you understand what it happening — they’ve disposed of me, my cause, my body. I’ve failed them one too many times. I was a willing host. A conduit. Through me, they could… return to this world. From Limbo, they could reach limitless planes of the multiverse.”

“The multiverse was destroyed,” she responded, just as quietly.

“Which is why they’re angry.” They both went quiet, watching as the eternally setting sun slipped a little lower on the horizon. Neither dared speak of how much that troubled them. “I beg you to give me control of Limbo. I would not see you fall to these… monsters.”

“Look at you,” she said — without looking at him. “You’re no better than a zombie. What could you do?”

“I am dying, Illyana. I am nearly dead already. I know how to destroy it—I can make Limbo end with me.”

She didn’t believe him, but knew he was telling the truth. “The things you’ve done to me, Belasco—they’re unforgivable. Supposed I believe you, that you were being genuine. That you, of all people, you, were willing to protect the universe after spending your life, and mine, threatening to destroy it. Why? A bitter reject, turned away by your masters for your uselessness? You’d fail. Even if sacrificing yourself, you would fail. That’s what you are—”

          _—No better than me._

“ _—_ A failure.”

Belasco took another step forward, closer to the edge of the cliff. He had turned to her now, his horned head staring up at her from the crook on the demon’s waist. “I expected as much. You were a stubborn child and, it appears, you still are. You’ve lived your life here and have yet to even ask the most basic question.”

“Which is?”

“There are no stars in the sky,” he began, “so what is that sun? We have no need for light, but it provides heat. Have you ever looked at it long enough to notice that it… pulses? In it lies the beating heart of a star—it breathes. It rests, now, but those violent flares will not burn up in the atmosphere forever. Soon, they will rain down upon the dimension. Thousands will lose their lives.”

“I don’t grieve for demons.”

“Will you grieve for yourself?”

She scowled. The urge to push him from the cliff was overwhelming. “I have no reasons to grieve.”

Belasco sighed, as much as a headless demon could. “There are tunnels beneath Limbo,” he explained, forcefully pushing the subject forward. “They are buried deep within the foundation of the realm, the prison of the Elder Gods. Beneath my palace is an entryway, and in my libraries, a map of these roads. Each of the gods is protected by a stone—their tether to the physical realm. You must destroy them, Illyana or Limbo—and your home—will be at their mercy.”

Remaining silent, Illyana watched as Belasco approached the edge of the mountain, head peering down to the ravine below. “This was your plan? To regain your power and destroy these stones, then rule Limbo for yourself?”

“I told you, child—Otherworld is the realm of the Elder Gods. Their existence sustains it, even while they are trapped in their abyssal prison. Destroying the stones will destroy the gods themselves. Destroying the Gods will destroy Otherworld. There will be no more demons. No more Gods. No more threat to your precious humanity.”

“Why would you sacrifice yourself for a world you have no part in?” she questioned. “Why would you destroy your home?”

“I told you, Illyana. I’ll do it for you.”

Her blood boiled, hands balling into fists. “How many lives do you have left, Belasco? Before you finally have peace?”

“I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel,” he admitted. “Life drains from me as it does from you. I am but further along it that process. The closer the red sun sets, the closer it comes to touching our soil, the less… alive I become. I live until then — until inferno is unleashed upon my realm.”

Snarling, Illyana rushed forward and pushed him. He did not fight, nor resist. That same complacent calm washed over him as he fell, almost smiling up at her. Thanking her. “I told you,” she said quietly, though she knew he could still hear her. “Never mention your perversion to me again, you sicko.”

 

_I have my soul again. What was left of it._  
_What parts he hadn’t corrupted._  
_The pieces I had not blackened myself._  
_I see the looks in their eyes — they don’t think I’m human._  
_That I’m some kind of demon. I’m not._  
_I have demons. I have darkness._

_— But I’m good. I swear._


End file.
